It would not surprise me if Amazon paid for a N month exclusive. Integrating GA is just not that hard.

That would go against every historical relationship that Sonos has ever had. They have declared service and voice assistant neutrality. Their API has always been free to any service, they have never paid for any licensing and have not given exclusivity to any service. For them to give exclusivity to Amazon would be very unusual, given this history.

But it is just not a 4 month project (assuming they were only working on it since release). I think an exclusive still falls into the agnostic bucket but this just forum blathering. I was just speculating. I am a fan of their hardware and software so i cannot wait to dump spotify and move back to Google throughout.

Note that the Amazon/Sonos partnership was not simply using the Alexa API. There is significant work on the Sonos end also, work that was done in conjunction with Amazon, but with an eye toward making a Sonos based cloud and universal voice control API suitable for all voice assistants. If Sonos had wanted exclusivity with Alexa, it would have simply done a "Alexa, tell Sonos to . . . " skill and be done with it.

The same holds true for the Google side. I highly doubt they are going to go out of their way to create a Sonos voice control API and then use some off the shelf code to incorporate Google. This is why it takes longer. This agnostic approach is more difficult and time consuming than coding directly to each specification, and it requires some amount of compromise between vendors. However, in the long run it allows you autonomy and ease of maintenance.

This is the approach that enabled Sonos to incorporate more music services than all other multi-room audio systems combined, and it seems to have been successful, if not very efficient to implement in the beginning phases.

A little perspective here might be good. Yes, the feature will be nice to have but holy cow, talk about first-world problems.

I suspect this is the reason companies are hesitant to give dates in the first place. If something gets delayed, people are super whiny about it, implying false advertising, etc. So the whinier people get about it, the more they confirm Sonos's sense that giving a release date is a bad idea.

I'm not sure what you mean by "integrate"? I'm planning to retire my Home speaker in my living room when the assistant is added, providing it functions in the same way. My mini in the bedroom will remain. There is no reason you can't have several Google speakers on the same WiFi network as the Sonos but you would need to turn off the mic if any other speaker is in the same room, for fairly obvious reasons.

I suspect it might be fairly soon, only because Google have now enabled Bluetooth broadcast to other Bluetooth speakers in the last few weeks so, in theory, Sonos might start losing sales. Of course nothing compares to Sonos for sound quality.

I had google homes in every room of my house and i returned them and purchsed 9 sonos ones because I was told by the salesmen at the store that google assistant was going to come by february.. Hugely disapointed. Really wishing i could return these now but well past the return period.

I'm always telling my 6-year-old daughter (and her friends!) to have a little patience. Sonos Google integration will come because Sonos knows that Google, like Amazon, both have too large a market share to be ignored. It's a very 1st world problem where we seemingly have to decide on a technology ecosystem to side with, made especially difficult for us when each by-design have distinct advantages. Do I go with Amazon for their purchase-power and sweet sweet Prime perks or hang with Google for their smarter AI integration and over-all hugeness. The fact is choosing either of these two modern-day Goliaths to anchor your subscriptions to is much of a much and does not preclude using the free aspects of the other. More to the point, in a year or threes (maybe fives) time, we'll all be buying significantly cheaper and smarter and more integrated tech from the local superstore. So my lovelies, don't stress it, Goolge will come to Sonos eventually and life will go on, at least until a little David company throws their new ground-breaking tech stone into the mix.

yeah, but I don't think any manufacturer will add new features to an old hardware. Do you think Sonos will add new feature like google assistant to hardware released about 1-2 years ago? I am losing hope especially on the support for GA on the Sonos one.It has been almost 6 months since the release and no signs of any GA support so far.

I'm always telling my 6-year-old daughter (and her friends!) to have a little patience. Sonos Google integration will come because Sonos knows that Google, like Amazon, both have too large a market share to be ignored. It's a very 1st world problem where we seemingly have to decide on a technology ecosystem to side with, made especially difficult for us when each by-design have distinct advantages. Do I go with Amazon for their purchase-power and sweet sweet Prime perks or hang with Google for their smarter AI integration and over-all hugeness. The fact is choosing either of these two modern-day Goliaths to anchor your subscriptions to is much of a much and does not preclude using the free aspects of the other. More to the point, in a year or threes (maybe fives) time, we'll all be buying significantly cheaper and smarter and more integrated tech from the local superstore. So my lovelies, don't stress it, Goolge will come to Sonos eventually and life will go on, at least until a little David company throws their new ground-breaking tech stone into the mix.

yeah, but I don't think any manufacturer will add new features to an old hardware. Do you think Sonos will add new feature like google assistant to hardware released about 1-2 years ago? I am losing hope especially on the support for GA on the Sonos one.It has been almost 6 months since the release and no signs of any GA support so far.

Why wouldn't they be able to release it on older hardware? They added Alexa support to 13 year old hardware. The fact is, most Voice Assistant processing is done in the Cloud. Alexa hears a command, and sends it to the Amazon Cloud. The Cloud processes the command, and it routes it to the Sonos Cloud. The Sonos Cloud then interprets the command and sends it to the Sonos device(s). Since the commands from the Sonos Cloud to the Sonos devices are Voice Assistant agnostic (and basically no different than the commands from an app controller), there is absolutely no reason why Google Assistant cannot do the very same thing, with no more overhead on the Sonos devices than there is today.

Basically, the Sonos devices don't really care where the commands are coming from; app, cloud, Alexa, Google Assistant, PC, home automation system, etc. The commands are the basically same from all of them, and require nothing more than what the devices have on them today, even the ones manufactured back in 2005.

Yeah for one reason the software may not fit on the old hardware. It is not about the commands being processed locally or in the cloud. The second reason is probably they will have version two of the product that the manufacturer would like to promote instead of version one of the hardware.

yeah, but I don't think any manufacturer will add new features to an old hardware. Do you think Sonos will add new feature like google assistant to hardware released about 1-2 years ago? I am losing hope especially on the support for GA on the Sonos one.It has been almost 6 months since the release and no signs of any GA support so far.

Why wouldn't they be able to release it on older hardware? They added Alexa support to 13 year old hardware. The fact is, most Voice Assistant processing is done in the Cloud. Alexa hears a command, and sends it to the Amazon Cloud. The Cloud processes the command, and it routes it to the Sonos Cloud. The Sonos Cloud then interprets the command and sends it to the Sonos device(s). Since the commands from the Sonos Cloud to the Sonos devices are Voice Assistant agnostic (and basically no different than the commands from an app controller), there is absolutely no reason why Google Assistant cannot do the very same thing, with no more overhead on the Sonos devices than there is today.

Basically, the Sonos devices don't really care where the commands are coming from; app, cloud, Alexa, Google Assistant, PC, home automation system, etc. The commands are the basically same from all of them, and require nothing more than what the devices have on them today, even the ones manufactured back in 2005.

yeah, but I don't think any manufacturer will add new features to an old hardware.

You can't be serious with this statement. Firmware updates with new features is very common these days. Pretty much anything that's connect to the internet, and even many things that aren't, will get regular firmware updates. Often, these are minor features and mostly bug fixes, but bigger features are more common on higher end products like phones and wireless speakers.

Yeah for one reason the software may not fit on the old hardware. It is not about the commands being processed locally or in the cloud. The second reason is probably they will have version two of the product that the manufacturer would like to promote instead of version one of the hardware.

Sigh.

Uhhh, read my post again. The required software is already there!!! And yes, it is very much about the commands being processed locally or in the cloud. If they were being processed locally, you would need to fit all the Alexa and Google Assistant logic on the device. But since they are processed in the Cloud, the only thing you need on the device is the ability to process generic commands coming from an app, a PC, a home automation device, or a voice assistant in the cloud, and as I said, that capability is already there!!!

As to the last part, if Sonos had only wanted to promote new devices instead of old, why would they release Alexa for the ZP100 and ZP80 from way back in 2005? Tell me what is different about Google that requires new software only on new devices, instead of working with 13 year old hardware like Alexa does? Otherwise, you are creating a problem out of nothing.

What if the GA enabled software image does not fit on the EMMC or the CPU or RAM is not sufficient to process google assistant as efficiently as the alexa. Anyway no reason to sigh....I guess we will know the truth this year :-)

Yeah for one reason the software may not fit on the old hardware. It is not about the commands being processed locally or in the cloud. The second reason is probably they will have version two of the product that the manufacturer would like to promote instead of version one of the hardware.

Sigh.

Uhhh, read my post again. The required software is already there!!! And yes, it is very much about the commands being processed locally or in the cloud. If they were being processed locally, you would need to fit all the Alexa and Google Assistant logic on the device. But since they are processed in the Cloud, the only thing you need on the device is the ability to process generic commands coming from an app, a PC, a home automation device, or a voice assistant in the cloud, and as I said, that capability is already on the device!!!

As to the last part, if Sonos had only wanted to promote new devices instead of old, why would they release Alexa for the ZP100 and ZP80 from way back in 2005? Tell me what is different about Google that requires new software only on new devices, instead of working with 13 year old hardware like Alexa does? Otherwise, you are creating a problem out of nothing.

What if the GA enabled software image does not fit on the EMMC or the CPU or RAM is not sufficient to process google assistant as efficiently as the alexa. Anyway no reason to sigh....I guess we will know the truth this year :-)

Sonos has the ability, RIGHT NOW!!!!! to be controlled via a voice assistant from the Cloud. ANY VOICE ASSISTANT!!!! It can also be controlled by an app, a PC, a Mac, and a half dozen standard Home Automation systems. It does this via a set of generic commands THAT ARE ALREADY LOADED ON THE SONOS DEVICES!!!!! Therefore, the only thing needed to get Google Assistant working is to finalize the Google Cloud -> Sonos Cloud commands. Because the Sonos Cloud -> Sonos devices commands ARE ALREADY WORKING for Alexa, the Sonos apps, Wrensilva, TunesMap, Lutron, iPort, Wink, Yonomi, Enno and any other company that wants to use them via the "Works with Sonos" API.

It's possible, probable even, then there will need to be a firmware update to sonos devices when GA is implemented. However, it highly unlikely that firmware is going to be significantly different in size/scope to the firmware update for Alexa. Sonos One may be an exception since it will need to handle taking voice commands as well. However, Sonos has promised that it will work with GA, and not building in enough horsepower to handle it would be a tremendous failure. Not to mention, as jgatie pointed out, this is primarily a cloud update.

It's possible, probable even, then there will need to be a firmware update to sonos devices when GA is implemented. However, it highly unlikely that firmware is going to be significantly different in size/scope to the firmware update for Alexa. Sonos One may be an exception since it will need to handle taking voice commands as well. However, Sonos has promised that it will work with GA, and not building in enough horsepower to handle it would be a tremendous failure. Not to mention, as jgatie pointed out, this is primarily a cloud update.

There will most definitely be a firmware update for older devices, at the very least to give the ability to list Google Assistant as one of the available Voice Assistants, plus the capability to link between Sonos and whatever app interface Google uses for Assistant. But as you said, that is not a significant change to the firmware.

Cookie policy

Cookie settings

We use 3 different kinds of cookies. You can choose which cookies you want to accept. We need basic cookies to make this site work, therefore these are the minimum you can select. You can always change your cookie preferences in your profile settings. Learn more about our cookies.